Things Are Afoot

I ended the year with quite a busy month of 'private walks' in December, and as well as taking families and couples all over London, did a couple of work Christmas walks ... which inevitably included an obligatory stop in a pub.

Top left we have Margo & Steve with their friends visiting from the States. Over the last couple of years I've done quite a number of walks with Margo, Steve and various family members and friends. On this particular occasion, we visited the Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London, which built in 1701, is the oldest Synagogue in Britain. Top right is Lisa & Ilya visiting from the States. When I met them, the christmas tree in Trafalgar Square had just been erected, an annual gift from the people of Oslo since 1947. I spent whole day with Len & Janina and took the photo of them towards the end of our day together, in Leadenhall Market. I did a Christmas walk with a company from Windsor, and took the above photo of them in Covent Garden.

Top left is another Christmas 'party' walk I did, with a PR company based in Clerkenwell. We explored the streets around Fleet Street and although the statue of Samuel Johnson's cat Hodge is usually decorated with a red ribbon over the Christmas period, on that particular night, he was positively festooned with some red baubles. I spent the day with Joel and his family from Canada, and behind them you can see Nelson's Column. Bottom left is Jeshma and Jayesh outside Westminster Abbey and finally Andrea and Simcha just before I dropped them off at Selfridges, the Oxford Street department store.

On Christmas Eve, I met Rania & Dave, visiting from Los Angeles. They were staying close to Soho, so we did a walk around the area taking in a few of the sights along the way, including Buckingham Palace, where I took the above photo. You can also see Helene and her family outside the rather imposing entrance to Westminster Abbey, and bottom left, John & his family outside the rather more discreet entrance to the Criterion Restaurant in Piccadilly.

So ... the top photo is of Diona and her family on our way to find a pub lunch in Soho. Bottom left is Aimee & Scott in St James's Park and finally Sam and his daughters visiting from the States, just by Parliament Square with Big Ben in the back ground.

Last but not least, I did three walks last week with Jen, Hatty & Isabelle visiting from Melbourne, Australia. Above left, is a photo of them standing with one of the Queen's Guards at Horse Guards. The centre photo shows them walking over the Millennium Bridge, with St Paul's cathedral in the background. On our final walk together, I took them up to Hampstead, which in north London and once quite separate from the city below has quite a villagey feel to it. We spent the morning wandering around the picturesque lanes and even went up to Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath to look down on London's ever changing skyline.

That wraps up all the private walks for the year 2014. If you're going to be visiting London in 2015 and would like me to show you around, then I'd love to hear from you.